Gingerbread House Unit
School: Whakatane Intermediate
Teacher: Marilyn Cure
Timeframe: Three-day elective unit – last three days of Term 4
Whakatane Intermediate Food Technology teacher Marilyn Cure has been running a popular elective unit on designing and creating gingerbread houses since 2009.
This unit is part of a school-wide program at the end of Term 4 where students can choose from 23 electives that fall outside of the regular school program. Each teacher chooses an elective unit to run for the three-day period, with students offered a wide variety of options such as flax weaving, landscape painting or a Tongariro Crossing excursion, etc. The students write a list of their top eight electives and the school attempts to place their preferences.
Marilyn's Gingerbread House Unit has been a very popular choice.
"I chose gingerbread houses because I wanted the kids to be inspired and excited about something they have always seen and dreamed about but never get to do," Marilyn says. "And the houses are awesome because there is innovation and creativity in the decoration, but you are also but looking at a strict construction process."
Preparation
When Marilyn first started the unit, she researched online to find the original gingerbread house recipe and templates for the construction of the walls and roof of a gingerbread house.
Marilyn first trialled the recipe and the creation of the house herself to ensure she had a good grasp of the process. This was essential for the tight timeframe, and helped Marilyn identify potential issues such as the walls crumbling from being rolled to the wrong thickness. Since that first year she has fine-tuned the timing and execution of the unit.
Marilyn starts preparing three weeks ahead for some of the ingredients. "I go through the recipe and make sure I can get everything. Ginger was short last year because of the Queensland floods, so I bought that a month ahead of time, and I did the same with molasses because sometimes the supermarket doesn't even have it."
Marilyn also ensures each student has an icing piping set to encourage more creativity in the design and decoration stages, rather than using store bought lollies for all of the design elements.
Once the students are assigned their electives, Marilyn holds a 15-minute meeting to tell the students what they have to bring for the next week, such as cake boards, rolling pins and supermarket banana boxes for transporting the finished houses.
The students then go home for the weekend and research existing gingerbread house designs on the internet or in cook books to generate ideas for the following week.
Process
First day
Mary starts with a short meeting to explain the process for the day and invite any questions.
The students then measure ingredients needed for the gingerbread dough. Marilyn encourages exact measurements at this stage, as the dough needs to be the perfect consistency to function as the structural elements of the house.
The students then mix the dough, roll it out thin, and then put it into the refrigerator for several hours wrapped in Gladwrap. This cools the butter in the dough, making it easier to roll into the final shapes without breaking up.
While waiting for the dough to cool, the students work on their design plans, and place printed templates from the internet on to cardboard. The chilled dough is then rolled flat again and the templates are used to carefully trace out the walls and roof panels with a knife. The students then pipe royal icing on the edges of the four walls - once the four walls are erected, the icing serves as the 'cement' on the corners of each wall of the house.
"The royal icing is like concrete on a building in that it takes 12 hours to set properly, so the students have to find things such as empty jam jars that they can use to prop it up overnight," Marilyn explains.
Because of the time involved, Mary aims to have this stage completed by the end of the first day so the houses have all night to harden.
Second day
On the second morning, the students first check whether their gingerbread walls have collapsed overnight. If all is well, the first roof panel is iced on its edges then carefully placed on the house and left to dry for the day.
The students then begin designing the decorations for the house and its surrounding landscape in work book.
"I wanted them to follow a design process for the decorating where things could be planned then changed if need be," Mary says.
Mary ensures that all of the student's designs have full-scale measurements and include a complete list of all the materials needed to carry out their designs. Before the students can move on to decorating, Mary has to approve each design. She also gives feedback and advice on the types of materials that could be used to carry out the student's ideas.
Third day
On the final morning the second roof panel is put on, completing the structure of the house. The students can then begin the decoration phase following their design plans. To give the roof as much time to harden as possible the students decorate the landscape first before moving onto the house.
Outcomes
Once all of the houses are finished, the students take a moment to view all the outcomes, along with teachers and parents who have come in to the school. The unit has attracted interest and the local newspaper came into take photos of all the Electives.
Marilyn was particularly pleased with the level of thought put into the 2011 class output.
"The students showed amazing creativity and did stuff I had never even thought of. There were pink wafer windowsills, little doors with black icing for the handles, chocolate paving stones and stained-glass windows made from bright coloured barely sugar melted in the oven and spread within the window frame."
Marilyn plans to continue the unit again. She will also be producing a full colour portfolio of all of the past houses that will include an illustrated step-by-step manual to assist future students.
RSS Feed
